Targeting Life Events

I recently read this article from Target Marketing Magazine (by Alan Weber) about an interesting way to appeal to customers in marketing and PR: tie your product or service into important life events that may be occurring in your targets' lives.

Examples of such events include "graduations, marriages, buying a home, the birth of a child, and retirements." These events both offer you a chance to develop a deeper relationship with your customer and represent a likely change in their needs or priorities. Such life events may cause a break from past purchasing behavior and induce a change to new and different behaviors.

How can you make these events work for you? One way, according to the article, is "rather than wait until a customer decides it is time to switch from puppy chow to active dog chow, you should tell the customer when it is time." This can help you capture and/or keep your customer's business.

The article recommends using event-driven marketing in three ways:

1. Getting customers: target consumers who are entering new life phases and may be developing a need for your product or service.
2. Keeping customers: use life events as a means to continue relationships with customers.
3. Growing customers: use life stage to "expand and deepen" relationships with customers.

Do you see event-driven marketing as a valuable strategy for getting, keeping, and growing customer base? I think it is an excellent idea, although it is not something that had occurred to me before.